The banner is a low-tech simulation of my place through time: the first photograph is intended to invoke the tundra of the PaleoIndian period, 12,500-10,000 BCE; the second, the swamps and woodlands of c. 1630, of the contact period between the Massachusett and the first European settlers. The third photograph is of my front yard when I moved in (the yard was used as a doggie playground), c. 2007; the fourth, a photograph of my garden, c. 2010.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

guest blogger Joseph R. Kobara, on the Garden of Eden

Mesopotamia,
the birthplace of human civilization, has long been a point of intrigue for
historians, geologists, anthropologists, and anyone with a curious mind. The
inception of the written word by the Sumerians occurred there. Modern day
mathematics and astronomy stemmed from this mysterious place as well.
Mesopotamia literally translates to “between rivers.” The rivers referenced are
commonly thought to be the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that flow from Northern Turkey
to what is now Iraq. They meet just before the Persian Gulf and empty
there.

The
Garden of Eden, like other elusive myths such as The Holy Grail or Atlantis, has
always been sought after. Maybe these universal pursuits derive from our basic
curiosity to know our origins. The Book of Genesis leaves hints as to where the
Garden of Eden may have been located:

A
river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and
becomes four branches. The
name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of
Havilah, where there is gold;

and
the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.

The
name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole
land of Cush. The
name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth
river is the Euphrates. Genesis 2:10-14

We know
of the Tigris and the Euphrates, but what about the other two unknown rivers? The
Pison and Gihon rivers are as baffling as the location of The Garden of Eden
itself. Could they be lost names that refer to the Rioni and Aras Rivers in
Northern Turkey? The Tigris and Euphrates both source from the mountains of
northern Turkey and some people have speculated that the Garden of Eden most
likely lies in these mountains. The exact locations of their sources still
remain a mystery because each river has countless estuaries. The passage from
Genesis seems to point to northern Turkey as many sources of major river systems
begin there. But the problem persists: the proposed locations of the Tigris and
Euphrates sources are hundreds of miles away from one another. Researches have come
to a new theory: where the four rivers of Genesis divide is at the Persian Gulf
at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rather than their sources. Radical as it is, the idea is based on the
theory that the rivers named in Genesis (Pison and Gihon) are now submerged by
the Persian Gulf. Archaeologist Jeffery Rose has introduced the idea that a
lost civilization of humans inhabited the fertile land below the Persian Gulf
until it was swallowed by the Indian Ocean in 4000 BCE. These civilizations
would have settled around these rivers. Since the first known written languages
weren’t developed until around 3,000 BCE, no historical evidence has been
documented and thus the mystery persists. The following map, created by Dr.
Juris Zarins, depicts the potential zone for the Garden of Eden and the four
named rivers:

Dr.
Zarins, a professor at Missouri State University, is a strong promoter of the
theory that the Garden of Eden once existed under the waters of the Persian
Gulf. And due to new confirmed projections of the flooding of the Persian Gulf,
Dr. Zarin’s theories may hold water.

Another indication that the Garden
of Eden may have been located under the Persian Gulf is the references to the
materials found near the Pishon river. Bdellium is an ancient gum resin found
near the Persian Gulf. It was a valuable aromatic material sourced from trees
surrounding the Gulf.

Though these findings all point
towards an unconventional hypothesis on the location of the biblical Garden of
Eden, an answer may never be revealed. The passage in Genesis is short and
limited in information. And even if geologists and anthropologists could
somehow explore the sea floor of the Persian Gulf, what could they search for?
Any indications of a garden would be long gone. And so, the mystery persists.

kk

I am a professor of medieval literature at Northeastern University in Boston, and am a passionate gardener, kayaker, and fortunate companion to Nirvana the tuxedo cat and Otis the cairn terrier. In addition to my academic project on lost and invented ecologies (a study of medieval literary texts, maps, and other documents as witnesses to natural places that no longer exist or have changed dramatically), as well as more casual investigations into lost and invented places, I am finishing the first novel in a trilogy that I like to describe as post-cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic, ecotopic, and polymorphously perverse sci-fi.